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There's No Place Like Home, Part 1/Theories
General *The episode title, "There's No Place Like Home," is a reference to The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy clicks her heels, says "There's no place like home," and seems to teleport from Oz back to Kansas, only to learn that she had never really left the farm. The title may refer to: **The Oceanic Six escaping the Island, because of their yen to return to civilization and, individually or as a group: ***Finding happiness. ***Realizing they have erred. Charlie, Libby and Boone Charlie, Libby and Boone are chosen as the three who survive the crash but die on the island because those people are dead and, on the surface, are the least likely to have anything in common with the Six. This gives the Six the capability, if contacted by relatives, of answering, "I wish I could tell you something, but...." *But these three do all have very personal connections with the Oceanic 6. They all knew Charlie, Jack gave Boone his own blood and Sun nursed him, and Hurley was in love with Libby. It is more likely that, knowing they would be asked many questions, possibly by the victim's own families, they chose these three because they could be convincingly distraught over their deaths and relate plausible details about their last days. *Once someone starts relating "plausible details," they are like to slip: **"Charley drowned when the Looking Glass flooded!" "What's the Looking Glass?" **"Boone died because the two-engine plane fell off a cliff!" "What plane?" **"Libby was shot!" "Shot? By who?" *It's possbile these three were chosen because of the possbility, however remote, that their survival beyond the initial crash might somehow be discovered. **Charlie's body was never recovered. It might float up somewhere. **Boone's tranmission might have been picked up (this doesn't account for Bernard's transmission a moment later though) **Hurley, or one of the other four adults, may have feared he'd inadvertantly let Libby's name slip, and then have to explain how he knew her. Kate's Reception *Kate looks forlorn because neither Sam Austen, the man she grew up believing was her father, nor her mother was there to meet her at the airfield. *Kate also looks forlorn because her mother is not there, which she reads as evidence that either he mother has died, is too sick to make the trip, or has not forgiven her for killing her father. *Even though Mars allegedly died when Oceanic 815 crashed, Federal officers did not appear to be there to take Kate into custody. Officers were absent because: **The aircraft landed at a military facility and Kate can be arrested if she tries to flee. **The subject of the scene was the conference. Including the officers would have detracted from presentation of the cover story. **Law enforcement officers agreed, in an earlier discussion with Kate and Oceanic representatives, to allow Kate to appear not to be in custody for the duration of the press conference. Decker verified that Kate's legal issues "were off the table." **Police officers are present at the entrance of the hangar where the press conference takes place (you can see two men in dark clothing, short sleeves, with shinny badges standing in front of a white car http://bp0.blogger.com/_Hxnvg45zlCw/SC0AsKl9jzI/AAAAAAAABQQ/HXL0QMhb9bU/s1600-h/4x12-00016.jpg). They are here to watch Kate from a distance. Following her rescue she is under constant surveillance but not taken into custody, as she has to take care of Aaron, her "son" and/or the O6 story of her heroism. It's also likely they put her under house arrest until her trial. **She is not taken into custody until a couple of years later when she goes to court. She must be under some kind of probation agreement until this point, partly due to her hero status or her responsibility to her child. The Numbers and the Camaro *Display of the Numbers on the Odometer and Trip Odometer :*Hurley's father, David Reyes, set the Numbers because he wants to keep the money. Hurley believes his bad luck started after he used the Numbers to win the 156 million dollars in the lottery . David wants Hurley to continue to believe that. :**Not plausible, because Hurley's father has been trying to convince his son otherwise for some time now (remember the trip to the fortune teller?). For him there is no curse, and he wants his son to believe that too. :**Hurley's father disappeared for ten(?) years and came back after Hurley won the lottery, admitting that he wanted the money. Why didn't he tell Hurley that he (Hurley) was jumping to conclusions about the Numbers displayed? :*When Hurley asks if David had set the Numbers, David answers, "What--what a coincidence," which is extremely. He does not actually commit himself to anything. **While Hurley's father did want the money at one stage, he seems to have reunited with Carmen and is attempting to restore his relationship with his son by repairing the car. Even if he did want the money, he's just a bad father, not a criminal mastermind. He's not likely to even remember what the numbers are, or that Hurley might be freaked out by them. Furthermore, the money automatically defaulted to Hurley's parents when he "died" and the script suggests that Hurley did not ask for it back when he returned. Hurley's father has no need to try and trick it out of him. :*Matthew Abaddon set the Numbers, hoping to drive Hurley to answer the "Are they alive?" question. The time we see Abaddon ask the question at the mental health facility is not necessarily the first time nor the last time. When Abaddon came to Hurley at the institution, Hurley did not appear to recognized him; however, according to Jack, Hurley is insane. One might also wonder if Abaddon looks the same all the time. When he came to retrieve Locke from his pre-crash physical therapy session, no one objected to a stranger moving about the facilities. (It is acknowledged that he could have been hired as a temporary employee.) When he came to see Hurley at Santa Rosa, there was no indication that he received permission to visit Hurley or assistance in doing so. :*They are not there. We saw them because Hurley "saw" them. Later, Hurley steels himself and checks the odometer again. He sees the actual mileage on the car. The debatable trip odometer may even be gone. Hurley is able to drive the Camaro, leading the police on a reckless high-speed chase. :*It's a sign to remind Hurley of the Island and its power and to encourage him to go back to do what he should have done. Mr. Paik's Business When Sun arrived at her father's office, Mr. Paik was discussing with his subordinates an unexpected problem in Paik Heavy Industries. One may guess that Paik asked something along the line of "who bought the controlling interest?" or "why didn't you stop this person?". The only thing the subordinates are able to tell him is that five banks were involved. After the subordinates leave and Paik asked what Sun labeled as an uncaring question about her unborn child, she told her father she had purchased a controlling interest, but did not specify a majority interest in Paik Heavy Industries. She said Oceanic paid "us" a significent settlement. "Us" referred to the Oceanic Six. Sun did not actually say that the money for the purchase came from "us." Sun used five different bank accounts because she wanted to purchase the controlling interest without giving her father prior notice and an opportunity to stop her. She said "I bought...." Mr. Paik believed he had sufficient safeguards in place to prevent losing control of the company, but Sun was able to circumvent after studying the problem and consulting with Hurley, who had learned a lot about finance after winning the lottery. She also had the option of acquiring prozies from essentially passive stockholders. An unanswered question is how Sun expects to control Paik industries before the next stockholders' meeting. Until that meeting, the sitting board of directors is probably loyal to Mr. Paik. Hugo Reyes is the source of much of the money. Hugo said he didn't want his money back, but Sun convinced him of how well it could be used. As long as he had not formally conveyed his money to his parents, as distinguished from their having it because he was presumed dead, he could reclaim it. Five banks doesn't necessarily mean five people. Sun and Hugo used five banks because it lowered the profile of each of the banks when they started buying shares in Paik Industries. Although it has often been alleged in these pages that Hugo gave his money to his parents, there is no substantiation that this actually happened. New argument: * In the flashforward we learn that Sun bought the controlling interest in Paik Industries for the money she received as a settlement from Oceanic Airlines. This element of the fabula seems so unrealistic that it is disputed whether to consider this as a blooper - mistake by the crew responsible for research behind the show. The plot univocally implicates that Paik Industries is one of the biggest heavy industies corporations in Korea. Such companies in the real world are worth tens of billions of dollars. The controlling interest always costs half of that sum - the ammount of money that has never been granted to one person as a compensation in the history of legal system. *A ``controlling interest`` is only 20% of a large publicly traded company, not 50% as is suggested above. The Orchid *How does Faraday have that page in his book? Was he the original creator of the Orchid's mysterious powers? Was he a member of the original DHARMA Initiative? **That is the same notebook in which he wrote "Desmond is my constant." That indicates there is some kind of time travel in involved. Taking that into consideration, along with his extremely displeased reaction when he looked at the Orchid page, suggests he has some knowledge about it all from the future. He already knows bad things are going to happen. ***No, it does not suggest he has some knowledge about it from the future. It merely suggests he has some knowledge about it. Keamy is also familiar with the secondary protocol and he has no supernatural powers. He learned it from Widmore. *** He couldn't get the information from the future, it would have to be the past or it wouldn't be there yet. ::*I don't get this train of thought. Daniel wrote that in his book in the event of him ending up like Desmond. We don't know that he is traveling in time, just that he is concerned about the possibility. ::** It would help to explain his memory problems ::**His memory problems are more rationally explained by repeated exposure to radiation. Desmond queries why he doesn't protect his head when conducting experiments. The most obvious explanation is usually the right one! ::***Daniel became unstuck in time after he first met Desmond. He wrote the phrase in his journal just in case he himself would be unstuck (which apparently caused his memory problems and need for a caretaker). It would also explain why he is suddenly so lucid now. He has found his constant and rejoined the time stream. ::****Daniel's notebook and his memory problems are related. His notebook has a lot of information about his current situation. Perhaps he became unstuck in time like Desmond before he came to the Island and he wrote down everything he could remember about the future. Only now are things coming back to him, but only as they play out. ***The scientists also knew about the Tempest and Daniel referred to the 'secondary protocol' in this scene. They may have been briefed on these stations by someone like Abaddon. ****Unlikely, as Charlotte doesn't seem to know what Ben is talking about. This shows that members of the group that Abaddon recruited, which include Naomi, Lapidus, Miles, Charlotte and Daniel all have not been filled in all the way. Naomi may have known what was really going on, however we've seen that both Lapidus and Charlotte didn't know about the Secondary Protocol. Miles may/may not know depending on how sweet his mind-reading/whisper deciphering skills are. It seems pretty logical that Daniel may be the only one who knows about the Secondary Protocol, besides Keamy. *****Ben may also know, hence him saying "he always has a plan" and him knowing what "kind of man" Keamy really is. *The question is not just how does Faraday know about the Orchid station, but how, and why, did he know about the secondary protocol? **He is likely living life like Desmond, but since he is a super genius, he can keep better track of it. He has also likely learned that he has to be careful in how he changes time. Changing something now makes the far future way too different from what he 'remembers'. He's likely riding it out until the end when he can save the day. ***Though the word "likely" has been used three times in the previous theory, none of these things is likely, just possible. There is no indication that Daniel is unstuck in time as Desmond and Minkowski were. ** i would think it more likely that, at some pint in the future, Daniel went back to the past (now the present of LOST) and wrote that down as he was able to recall his future. Therefore, his page about the orchid was written in the past yet with knowledge of the future thanks to time-travelling and this would follow the rules set about it in the Lost world. ***Remember Daniel got really upset when he saw the report of the discovery of the plane crash? Maybe that's because he was all a bit muddled by experimenting on himself and could see things, in the way that Desmond could in "The Constant". While having these flash forward/backs he was able to write down all information he could remember. He is a scientist and keeping this kind of log would be imperative to his studies, especially as they were based around time travel. When he signed up for the mission, he did so in the knowledge that perhaps he was going to die or he'd have a hard time on this island. Perhaps that's the cause of his upset and the reason for the diary. **This bugged me too. When Keamy opened the safe with the 2nd protocol the captain has no idea what's inside, only they are supposed to open it together. So if the captain doesn't even know about a plan-b, how does Daniel? The only thing I can think is that because of his skills, he's the one who wrote it. ***Daniel obviously knows a great deal about the Island. He even knew about the time discrepancy, (hence the reason he set up the payload test). He seemed to expect the result, but simply be disappointed. He also knew about the whole "you need a constant" thing, as well as a plethora of other tidbits such as the Tempest before he got on the Island. Why is it so odd that he knows about the Orchid? He seems to know more about the landmarks and geography of the Island than most of the survivors do. ****Because, he got the Constant information from his past self. If his past self or future self travels back to the past, I don't picture Daniel Faraday being 007 and outsmarting the Others to learn about it. He wrote that himself and it was not "documents passed down". So he must have traveled into the past or been a high ranking DHARMA person to get that kind of access to it's secrets. ****Or, Daniel works for a scientific group which knows a lot about the Island, and has spies (besides himself) in Widmore's operations which are aware of the secondary protocol. The group is possibly affiliated with Ben, or possibly a third front in the war for the Island. Quite possibly, this group is the heir to the DHARMA Initiative. ***Daniel was likely chosen for the freighter mission because of his knowledge of and experiments in time travel (see ). Since he is the only time travel expert on the freighter, Widmore would have briefed him on the Orchid, which may be the source of the Island's time disturbances. Carole Littleton: Recovery and Aaron Ben's signal message *Ben signals to The Others that he plans to operate The Orchid's wheel and leave, or that Locke is their new leader, or both, as in the next episode, Richard isn't surprised to see Locke. **As the rest of The Others are surprised, though, it could be that Richard knew this would happen from Jacob. ***Ben may of been warning Richard that he was about to use the wheel to the others, perhaps knowing that when he moved the Island that Locke would travel leaving the others in the present. ****Chances are that Ben was actually telling them that he was giving himself up to the mercenaries as Richard knew exactly where to send Kate to free Ben